HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend and one of the top five best House Speakers of the last decade, Will Weatherford.

In all seriousness, I keep hearing about how happy Weatherford is spending more time at home and in the private sector, but his voice is sorely missed (point out the Florida Republican who is talking about generational poverty!). He should run for governor in 2018 and I say that as someone who would like Gwen Graham, Bob Buckhorn, Phil Levine, Rick Baker,Richard Corcoran, and Jack Latvala also to run.

THE ANGLING FOR 2018 HAS ALREADY BEGUN…

JOHN MORGAN FOR FLORDA GOVERNOR?

Such a notion is not only not absurd, but, in fact, could have surprisingly broad support across Florida.

I see it as one part Bernie Sanders, one part Donald Trump, and two parts bourbon. Doesn’t that sound like a cocktail Floridians would line up around the block to drink?

If you watched Morgan’s post-election press conference last Wednesday, you can get a taste of what a Morgan candidacy might look like.

He rejected as “not his fight” any future efforts to legalize marijuana in Florida, a natural question given his nearly four year long crusade to pass medical marijuana. But then he did something different and unexpected, pivoting to the topic of decriminalization and praising efforts by cities and counties to make marijuana possession a ticket-able, rather than arrest-able, offense.

Smart.

Floridians are in this weird place on marijuana reform where there is clearly no desire to legalize it here, but most believe sending people to jail for marijuana is insane.

I’m slightly paraphrasing but this was my favorite Morgan moment from that presser, and the one that could be informative of what a run for governor could